Media Representations of the Roma Population in Greece: Negative Stereotyping and Class Politics Against the Indigenous “Other”

Even though Roma people are typically indigenous Greek citizens, having settled for centuries in the Greek part of the Balkan peninsula, they suffer long-standing marginalization in Greek society, due to their ethnic cultural characteristics. This chapter aims to conduct research into the media representations of the Roma populations in Greek online mainstream news media, focusing on the two most popular news sites ( protothema.gr , iefimerida.gr ), to shed light on the contemporary media discourse regarding the Roma populations. The originality of the current research is that it investigates the news content concerning the Roma population in a period marked by the victimization of that community. The most important assumption stemming from our research is that even though the Roma individuals have been—once again—the victims, their representation in the media featured in our research follows the rationale of the marginalizing presentation of the Roma populations, depicting them as perpetrators of violence and potential dangers to public peace and security.